Ask the Slot Expert: Deuces Wild doesn't pay enough

In 1933, The Mills Company introduced the Mills Mystery slot machine. I don't know what was so mysterious about this machine. I do know that it broke tradition for paytables of the era. From the brochure:

For 30 years all manufacturers have agreed that Bell rewards should be 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, and 20.

The Mills Mystery machine broke with that standard by paying 3 and 5 coins, respectively, for two cherries and two cherries with a bell, instead of the industry standard 2 and 4. Perhaps the mystery was how this machine could afford to be so generous.

Was it the largesse of the operator?

Hardly. The machine had 20 stops. Machines of that era usually had only 10 stops.

I can see players playing a Mills Mystery machine instead of a machine that pays the standard 2 and 4. Why play a machine that pays less for those two combinations?

Of course, how much a combination pays is only half of the picture. One also has to know how likely it is to land a combination to truly know whether a Mills Mystery machine was more generous for those two combinations. It paid more, but they might have been less likely to hit.

There once was a time when you could play dollar 9/6 Jacks or Better at multiple strip casinos. I have many fond memories of playing the game at the Desert Inn, Treasure Island, and Caesars Palace.

At the time, Caesars had a few rows of video poker machines in one area. The 9/6 machines were mixed in with 8/5 machines. I would frequently see someone playing an 8/5 machine even though a 9/6 machine was right next to it.

A 9/6 Jacks machine is more generous than an 8/5 Jacks machine because video poker machines deal from a fair deck. Nothing else changed besides the payouts for the full house and the flush.

We have to consider the probability of achieving a hand when comparing paytables with different structures.

I have a friend, for instance, who refuses to play Deuces Wild. He thinks that the Deuces Wild paytables don't pay enough for the hands.

Consider three-of-a-kind. Most non-wild paytables pay 3 coins for trips while Deuces Wild pays only 1 coin. How about a straight flush? He can get 50 coins on many Jacks or Better paytables but only 10 playing NSU.

I tried to tell him that the reason Deuces Wild paytables pay so much less for the same hands is because the four wild deuces give you more ways to make those hands. And some of the Deuces Wild games you can play have higher long-term paybacks than the bonus poker games you prefer.

The disconnect arises from what you can see and what you can't see. Mills Mystery pays more than other machines for some combinations. Deuces Wild pays less than games without wild cards for every hand but the royal. We can see the paytable.

The probabilities, on the other hand, are hidden in the math of the game. We can't see them by looking at a machine or going through its help screens. We have to calculate the probabilities. Calculating the numbers is not difficult, but it is tedious.

My friend accepts that the fact that the wild cards mean there are more ways to make many hands. That doesn't matter. He still thinks that Deuces Wild doesn't pay enough.

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